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The Baltimore Ravens are paying the price for winning a Super Bowl.
The NFL champions lost two key components of their defense, linebackers Paul Kruger and Dannell Ellerbe, as free agency began Tuesday. On Monday, they traded star receiver Anquan Boldin, a key to their title run, to San Francisco — the team the Ravens beat 34-31 to win the championship.
Kruger went north to division rival Cleveland for a five-year, $40 million deal, while Ellerbe headed south to Miami for $35 million over five years. Steelers receiver Mike Wallace joined Ellerbe in choosing the Dolphins.
The 49ers didn’t go untouched, either. After giving up a sixth-round draft pick for Boldin, they saw tight end Delanie Walker leave for Tennessee.
San Francisco also confirmed the trade of backup quarterback Alex Smith to Kansas City, a deal that was known for weeks. The 49ers will receive the Chiefs’ second-round pick, 34th overall, in this year’s draft and a conditional pick in next year’s draft.
The 32-year-old Boldin expressed surprise that he was traded.
“I thought this was the last stop of my career but regardless of the circumstances I came here to win a Championship ... and in February we came home Champions,” he said on Twitter.
Ellerbe also tweeted as he moved on to the Dolphins.

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. (AP) — A big first for Danica Patrick, but an even bigger second for Jimmie Johnson.

Patrick made history out front at the Daytona 500, only to see five-time NASCAR champion Jimmie Johnson reclaim his spot at the top in the end.

Johnson won his second Daytona 500 with a late push on Sunday, grabbing the spotlight from Patrick as she faded on the final lap. Patrick became the first woman in history to lead laps in "The Great American Race" and was running third on the last lap, but slipped to eighth in the late push for position.

Her fall began when Dale Earnhardt Jr. made his move, but his last-ditch effort wasn't enough to catch his Hendrick Motorsports teammate.

There were several crashes during the day, none approaching the magnitude of the wreck that injured more than two dozen fans a day earlier in a second-tier race on the same track.

JOHANNESBURG (AP) — The leggy blonde model tweeted that Valentine's Day should be "a day of love for everyone."

Instead Reeva Steenkamp was shot dead in the home of her boyfriend, paralympian superstar Oscar Pistorius, who was charged with her murder.

Steenkamp, South African model with a law degree, campaigned against rape and violence against women. Thursday morning, Reeva Steenkamp was to give an inspirational talk at a Johannesburg school. The next day she was going to wear black to protest the brutal rape and mutilation of a 17-year-old.

But the glamorous South African celebrity was found dead in the early hours from four bullet wounds in the Pretoria home of Pistorius. The two had been dating for only a few months.

She was one of FHM magazine's 100 Sexiest Women in the World for the past two years, appeared in international and South African advertisements and was to make her debut next week as a celebrity contestant on the reality TV show "Tropika Island of Treasure" filmed in Jamaica. She was also the South African face of Avon cosmetics. Police said the model was 30.

The freckled blonde who appeared in scanty bikinis on magazine covers and sashayed down fashion ramps was "continuously breaking the model stereotype," said her publicist Sarit Tomlinson.

The top 25 teams in The Associated Press' college basketball poll, with first-place votes in parentheses, records through Feb. 10, total points based on 25 points for a first-place vote through one point for a 25th-place vote and last week's ranking:

Parcells reversed the fortunes of four teams — New York Giants, New England Patriots, New York Jets and Dallas Cowboys — during 19 years as a head coach. He finished with a record of 172-130-1, leading the Giants to a pair of Super Bowl titles.

I’ll admit it.
I’ve been back and forth on this a hundred times. I’ve checked the injury report. I’ve compared stats. I busted out the divining rod and poked some goat entrails with it.
In fact, as I sat down to write this, I very nearly talked myself out of this pick.
But, like Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, I won’t back down.
Ladies and germs, the Baltimore Ravens will win today’s game.
In case you hadn’t heard, Super Bowl Some Roman Numeral is today. It’s kind of a big deal.
This one has been a tough one to call for me. I literally couldn’t even decide what I wanted to eat for the game, let alone decide who I thought was going to win. Of course, the food associated with the game is just as important as the game itself but that’s another issue.
My dilemma boils down to this: my head says the San Francisco 49ers should win. My gut says the Baltimore Ravens.
And, since my gut is bigger than my head, I have to go with Baltimore. Just kidding. That was just one factor in my decision.
Actually, my thought process was more along these lines: I generally like the team that seems to have its mojo working heading into the playoffs. By that standard, the 49ers should be a shoo-in.

SAN DIEGO (AP) — Tiger Woods is a winner again at Torrey Pines, and the only question Monday was how long it would take him to finish.

Woods stretched his lead to eight shots in the Farmers Insurance Open before losing his focus and his patience during a painfully slow finish by the group ahead.

Despite dropping four shots over the last five holes, he still managed an even-par 72 for a four-shot victory on the course where he has won more than any other in his pro career.

He won the tournament for the seventh time, one behind the record held by Sam Snead, who won the Greater Greensboro Open eight times. It was the eighth time Woods won at Torrey Pines, which includes his playoff win in the 2008 U.S Open.